


got my own secrets to keep

by summerstorm



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s03e17 Break On Through, F/M, Gen, Secret Relationship, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-05-09
Packaged: 2017-11-07 08:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bonnie doesn't like the implications of messing with Alaric's wedding ring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	got my own secrets to keep

**Author's Note:**

> This would make more sense as part of a longer story, but such a story does not exist, so this is an off-screen scene from 3.17 (which actually happened and was off-screen for no reason other than this show just loves to not feature Bonnie on it) from Bonnie's pov, assuming an equally off-screen romantic/sexual relationship (which did not actually happen) has been going on between her and Alaric for a while. Sometimes my brain just looks at things funny, I guess.

It's the perfect prop for the spell, something incredibly, distinctively personal, and something that falls right along the line between Alaric's old life and what he became when Isobel left him—and left him with a death-cheating ring. Bonnie knows more about Alaric than she'd be comfortable with under normal circumstances, things she's heard from Elena and things Bonnie's asked him about since their—thing, whatever it is they've been doing started. 

The honesty thing is good, and everything, and she wouldn't have been so adamant about it if she didn't prefer to know the truth over seeing just the best in someone, but this is—well, it's strange. Bonnie hasn't even told Elena, or _anyone_ , about Alaric, because she doesn't think it would go over well, having lied this long, and because things keep getting in the way, things like the Original family and Elena's inability to consider the repercussions of something before she does it and the way the Salvatores would probably be willing to massacre all of Mystic Falls if it were the only way to keep Elena alive. Bonnie loves Elena, and she doesn't want to blame her for everything that goes wrong in their lives because there is so much more to everything, even when Elena is the one who unwittingly sets things going, but there's only so much shit Bonnie can put up with before she needs a time-out. At the very least she's owed that much.

The point is, Bonnie knows how much of Alaric's decision to become a vampire hunter had to do with his ex-wife, how connected it was to being, technically, a widower, and refusing to accept that, and now Elena's holding his wedding band on her palm so Bonnie can, well, basically destroy it. There's a significant chance the spell will melt it into shapelessness. It's not like not doing the spell is an option; there are three possible ways to deal with this, and the other two are locking Alaric somewhere forever or killing him. There's not enough great sex in the world that would make Bonnie even consider letting things play out, not when letting things play out means allowing Alaric's multiple-death-induced psycho killer personality take hold of him and murder half the Council and Elena who he now lives with and himself and hell, maybe Bonnie, too, because if it's looking the other way he's punishing people for, gods know Bonnie's done her share of that.

She just doesn't like the implications of messing with Alaric's wedding ring. There's something in her that doesn't want to do it, because it feels like she's about to suck the life out of his memories of his ex-wife. Then there's something in her that doesn't want to think about the fact that she's hooking up with someone who has an ex-wife, and then there's another, smaller part of her that wonders if Alaric didn't think about any of that or if he just couldn't come up with a better prop for the spell. 

This would all be easier if she'd gotten a chance to talk to him about this. It all came out suddenly when she was busy with Abby, and she hasn't even seen him since before he got shot. She talked to him on the phone last night, when Caroline told her, and she stayed up trying to find a way to fix it, a solution to give when Elena inevitably asked for Bonnie's help.

It's things like that that make Bonnie wish she'd told someone already. She needs to tell Caroline, at least, as soon as she gets back to Abby's house. There's lying about where you spent the night and then there's pretending to do research you've already done in front of one of your best friends. 

"Is something wrong?" Elena says, and Bonnie realizes she was staring into the distance while holding Alaric's wedding ring between her thumb and forefinger.

"No," Bonnie says, smiling, "nothing wrong. You know, aside from everything that's wrong, but there's nothing specially wrong about this moment."

Elena frowns at her, says, "Okay..." but doesn't push it. Bonnie's not sure what she'd do if Elena pushed the subject. Get angry, maybe, because Bonnie's entitled to being weird around Elena. It's a concession that she's around Elena at all, right now. But being angry is tiresome, and being angry at someone Bonnie's been best friends with since she was a kid is exhausting. She'd like to be able to talk to Elena about Abby, and she'd like to talk to her about what it's like to be the one person in this town who's only not going on a vampire-slaying spree because other people, not Bonnie, want to keep those vampires alive. She'd like to tell her about Alaric, because Elena has a right to know Bonnie's been sleeping with him, if only because he's her defacto guardian. Alaric would have told Elena, already, if Bonnie hadn't asked him to let her do it. Bonnie likes to think she still ranks higher than Alaric on the list of people Elena trusts and expects honesty from in return.

Mostly she'd like to tell Elena that yes, there is something specially—not wrong, but definitely bizarre about this moment. She's fairly sure Elena would understand why without explanations, if she were up to date on the goings-on of Bonnie's love life. Or sex life, or whatever. It's not necessarily that the thing with Alaric isn't solid, or serious, but more that they both feel weird about defining it, what with how he's really still her teacher and the life expectancy of both people and relationships in this town wouldn't outlast a dragonfly.

Plus, Bonnie was on the rebound when it started. And judging by Alaric's track record of spending two years hung up on his missing wife, he probably still was, too, from Jenna. At least Bonnie got to break up with Jeremy.

Of course, there's not going to be any sort of relationship to report if this spell doesn't work. "Step back," she tells Elena. "You can leave if you want. I'll call when it's done."

"I'll wait in the next room."

The witches know what she's trying to do before she gets started, and they know it means more to her than it looks like at first glance. That's the contract, in this house; the witches will help Bonnie, but she's exposed to them, her fears and wishes and every contradictory thought in her head out in the open. The witches need to know what Bonnie wants to help her achieve it, no matter how well she's memorized a spell or how much physical paraphernalia she's brought along with her. She's here, instead of somewhere else, because she needs that help, because this is complicated, not in magic but in logic, the ethics of reversing the effects of cheating death. The witches fall firmly in the camp of never doing that, and Bonnie already suffered the consequences of going against nature once.

But Alaric's ring isn't his doing, and the death it cheats is unnatural.

And Bonnie doesn't want to lose someone else, not to the consequences of magic she wasn't the one to unleash.


End file.
